The Log Driver's Waltz with Aaron Reynolds: Deep Thoughts About Canadian Masculinity, Quirky Comedy, and Keeping Animation Weird

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
I treasure the juxtaposition of things that
don't feel like they should gotogether, and then yet somehow
they do.
And I find that the funniest,and I find that like my brain
says that's the highest form ofhumor.
And I'm I mean, that's probablyjust because that's what I'm
good at, and I can, you know,and I do it.

(00:21):
But I also did not consider thatpart of what makes the log
driver's waltz so delightful isthat juxtaposition between his
manly brawliness and his abilityto dance and the fact that that
makes him so desirable.
Yeah, I don't know.
Like, did this set me on mycareer path?

SPEAKER_01 (00:41):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
You know it's worth talking andthinking about.
And so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.

(01:01):
I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
Stupid Shit, because pop cultureis still culture, and shouldn't
you know what's in your head?
On today's episode, we'rewelcoming a special guest, Aaron
Reynolds, the mind behind effingbirds.
And Aaron is going to be sharinghis deep thoughts about the log
driver's waltz with me, mysister, Emily Guy Birkin, and

(01:25):
with you.
So let's dive in.
Aaron, welcome.

unknown (01:29):
Hello.

SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
It's great to have you on Deep Thoughts about
Stupid Shit.
So, listeners, Aaron is thesixth-time Webby Award-winning
cartoonist behind F Birds.
And if you're unfamiliar withit, you should pause this
podcast right now and navigateover to Fbirds.com and take a
look because hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 (01:48):
Thank you.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:50):
So the Log Driver's Waltz.
I have to admit, I have no ideawhat that is.
So I have nothing in my headabout this one.
What about you, Ann?
It's nothing.
I got nothing.
Tabula Rosa.
Tabula Rassa, Tabula Rassa.
Cool.
So, Aaron, what is the LogDriver's Waltz and why is it so
important?
Like what's the take here?

SPEAKER_03 (02:12):
Yeah.
So there are multiple thingsinvolved.
Canadians of a certain age,like, and I mean basically
50-year-old Canadians, will havethe log driver's waltz burned
into their brains because therewas a National Film Board of
Canada animated short film madeof the song The Log Driver's

(02:34):
Waltz that has it, it's veryfanciful animation and it's
quite beautiful.
And it would run whenever therewas three minutes of loose time
at the end of a block ofchildren's programming on the
CBC because they didn't runcommercials during children's
programming.
And so they would generally runa national film board short

(02:57):
aimed at children between theend credits of that show and the
next show.
And more often than not, it wasthe log driver's waltz.
And what's extra funny about itis because it was always fitting
into that little time, you wouldnever see the whole thing.
You would see the first minuteof it, and then it would fade
out, and the next show wouldstart.
And so most people who know theLog Driver's Waltz very

(03:19):
intimately don't know the lastverse of the song, the Log
Driver's Waltz.
So it's actually a very, veryold song.
It's one of the songs that was.
Do you guys know Folkways?
Do you know that record labelthat the whole project to try to
collect all of those folk songs?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (03:36):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 (03:36):
So there are recordings of Wade Hemsworth,
who is a Canadian folk singer,playing all of these songs, like
Black Fly and Eyes the By, whichis a song, very Newfoundland
song, and Donkey Riding, whichall for some reason every
Canadian schoolchild learnsdonkey riding, even though it's
a song about moving your lumberout of Quebec.
His version of it in therecording, his guitar is out of

(04:00):
tune, and he's a man with a veryburly man voice singing a song
from the point of view of awoman, which is like this extra
disconnect.
And it's also like a somewhatlike it's kind of a gentle and
heartfelt song.
So it's that version of itsounds very funny.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
Is that the Log Driver's Waltz or the donkey
riding?
That's the donkey.

SPEAKER_03 (04:23):
No, no, that's that's Log Driver's Waltz.
Log driver's waltz.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
So this old recording with the out-of-tune
guitar.
So Log Driver's Waltz is fromthe point of view of a woman.
Okay.
All right.

SPEAKER_03 (04:33):
And so and I'm not clear on whether Wade Hemsworth
wrote this song or if this is afolk song that he heard from
somewhere else and thenrecorded.
I mean, it feels very much likeall of the other songs that are
Wade Hemsworth songs that arevignettes of being Canadian or
of traveling around Canada anddiscovering a thing.

(04:53):
Because like the whole thingabout donkey riding is about
like laborers who go from job tojob and who are like riding the
iron boat down the canal andgetting the next job and
breaking their backs, doing thisand doing that.
And Eyes the By is a song abouta man in Newfoundland trying to
impress a woman by building aboat and stuff like that.

(05:14):
And Log Driver's Waltz is abouta woman whose parents would like
her to marry a doctor or alawyer, but she waits until all
the log drivers come to townduring the drive and goes
dancing with them becausethey're all so light on their
feet.
Aaron Ross Powell Do you knowthe whole the whole idea of a
log driver?

SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Are they the ones who dance on the wood on the
river?

SPEAKER_03 (05:37):
Yes.
And it's not and it's notdancing as much as they are
trying to direct all those logsdown the river because they've
cut them down, they've thrownthem into the river, and now
they're going to collect them atthe mill.
So they have to make sure theydon't like wash ashore.
They have to make sure thatthey're all lined up and going
down the river.
And so they have pikes and bootswith spikes on them.
And they are literally likerunning forwards and backwards

(05:59):
on the logs to turn them in theright direction and using the
pike to grab other logs and dragthem around.
And it was incredibly dangerouswork because you could easily
fall off and get crushed betweenthe logs.
And you had to be so nimble andso agile and so fast.
Yes.
So much so that the other namefor a log driver is a Rough
Rider.

(06:19):
And the Ottawa Rough Riders werethe longest-running professional
sports franchise in historyuntil they went bankrupt in the
mid like 2010s, which was acrime.
But also so much so that thereare two football teams in the
Canadian Football League, bothcalled the Rough Riders.
There were the Ottawa RoughRiders and the Winnipeg Rough
Riders, which are still around.

(06:40):
So, you know, no spot in thatWinnipeg.

SPEAKER_01 (06:42):
So you gave us the quick synopsis of like what
happens in this song, this womanwho doesn't want a professional,
she wants a log driver becausehe's he's he's light on his
feet.
Talk to us about like the wholeexperience of this cartoon that
you were watching over and overand over again.
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (06:59):
It's so beautiful.
Yeah.
So the recording of it is theMcGarigal sisters, who are like
iconic folk singers.
And they've done a reallybeautiful arrangement of it.
And it starts with some pianoand then some accordion and they
start singing it.
The short opens with black andwhite footage of real log
drivers doing the log drive,like working the logs down the

(07:21):
river.
And at one point, they pass apoint in the river at the bend
of the river.
And as they pass the bend in theriver, everything becomes
animated and more fanciful.
And suddenly the log driver hasa longer cap that like is
trailing behind him and theselong socks and this colorful
plaid flannel shirt, and he's,you know, dancing along the logs

(07:42):
and it becomes much moreanimated and big.
And the animation is a veryliteral representation of the
song.
The lyric that I always like,and the part of the animation
that I always like are whenshe's talking about the doctors
and lawyers, their manners arefine, but their feet are of
clay.
And it's this lineup of thesereally sort of boring looking

(08:06):
men along the wall at a dance.
And then the log driver swoopsin and, you know, sweeps her off
her feet and they do theirlittle dance.
And it's just, oh, it's it's themost beautiful.
And it's very like part of it isthat I'm sure that I watched it
so many times that it's justburned into that part of my
consciousness.
And part of it is that it is itreally is great.

(08:30):
Like it is one of our most likecelebrated and most seen shorts.
And the National Film Board inCanada are very they have put
together a lot of great art andparticularly a lot of great
shorts.
Did you ever see like The CatCame Back, the animated film of
The Cat Came Back that was ashort about the man who keeps
trying to get rid of the cat?

SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Yeah.
Sounds familiar.
I mean, I know the song.

SPEAKER_03 (08:52):
Yeah, this yeah.
So it's based on the song, andit is but I mean it's like a
almost like a Warner Brotherscartoon because there's dynamite
and like, you know, just tryingto get rid of it.
That does ring bells.
Yeah.
That's some national film board,or things like the big snit,
which I can't even describe it.
No, I'm not gonna describe it.
Um but like it's like it's abouta dispute between a married

(09:15):
couple, but it ends with nuclearwar.
Like it's it's crazy.
But that was the great thing isthe national film board was a
place that you could go and getfunding to make something weird
or something different orsomething that nobody was
willing to put up the money foror that didn't have a commercial
prospect.
And so it's where beautifulthings came out of it.
And I was always I used to worknear the National Film Board

(09:37):
offices in downtown Toronto, andI I didn't ever go in, but I
always sort of took a moment tobe thankful by their door when I
went by.

SPEAKER_01 (09:45):
So I want to dig into like so it's however many
years ago, 40 years ago, andlike young Aaron is watching
children's programming inCanada, and there are no
commercials.
Instead, there's the logdriver's walls, or at least some
portion of it.

unknown (10:01):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (10:02):
That's right.
There would also be like we usedto have things called the
heritage minutes, which werelittle dramatized one-minute
vignettes out of Canadianhistory, like the moment that
the harbor blew up and or thewhat's the best one?
I always remember one that'sabout a rowing race or the
discovery of the polio vaccine.
You know, like there are allthese like little like one, but

(10:22):
they're like one-minute, veryearnest dramatizations of
moments in history.
Oh, the invention of basketball.
That's my favorite one.
Canada taking credit for theinfo.

SPEAKER_01 (10:32):
For basketball.

SPEAKER_03 (10:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
So, okay, so you're sitting there, you're 10 years
old or whatever, and all there'sheritage minutes and there's
children's programming, andthere's all this happening.
Like, and right now you'refeeling very nostalgic about it.
Yes.
Which is great.
I love nostalgia.
That's part of our wholeproject.
But let's like look behind likewhat were the lessons lurking.
What are the lessons therelurking behind the nostalgia
from the log drivers waltz inparticular?

(10:56):
Like it sounds to me likethere's some stuff about
romance, about masculinity,maybe.
Yes.
Like, what's in there?

SPEAKER_03 (11:02):
I think that oh wow.
So I hadn't really put themasculinity part onto it.
And when you say that, it isit's a very distinct kind of
masculinity because this is aman who does a job that is like
very tough.
And also he's a great dancer.

SPEAKER_02 (11:23):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (11:23):
And like that is not your typical picture of the
working man and that it makeshim so attractive.
Right.
And that it's and so that'sreally funny.
I never really thought aboutthat, but I'm sure that that has
had an impact on me and the waythat I live my life.

SPEAKER_01 (11:39):
Tabula rasa for me, hearing you talk about it, like
I'm hearing, like, we've gotthese smart guys who are
accomplished, but they'reboring.

SPEAKER_02 (11:46):
They're boring.

SPEAKER_01 (11:47):
They're really boring and they can't dance.
And so, like, this the idealman, like he faces danger and
like he's he's very athletic,you know, he's strong, and he
can sweep her off her feet onthe dance floor, like sort of
that particular picture ofmasculinity and what that then
the seed of that, like what doesthat grow into as that

(12:07):
10-year-old becomes a20-year-old, becomes a
30-year-old?
Like, it's there from the linedriver's wall.
It's like the fact that we metyou at sp at fan expo and we
were like, we do this thing.
And you were like, Yes, I wantto come on and talk about stuff.
And this is the thing that youpicked.

SPEAKER_03 (12:20):
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
What is like, what is that that plant that's
growing back there that's beenthere for all this time?

SPEAKER_03 (12:27):
Oh, like I was not prepared to have a real like uh
Oh, we do it really.

SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
We are deep thinkers.
Yeah, we want to know whatfurniture's in your head.

SPEAKER_03 (12:36):
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm oh, this is so strange tolike actually try to layer that
onto my life.
But no, no, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
Well, it's also to get into like what is it saying
about Canadian masculinity?
Because like the log drivers,like I have no doubt that there
were American log drivers, butthis feels like there is no log
driver's waltz in America.
Like we don't have we don't havethis.

SPEAKER_03 (13:01):
Well, yeah, I don't think you have the same kind of
like it's not part of ourculture.

SPEAKER_00 (13:05):
Not even in like Vermont or in the parts of the
country where logging was was animportant part of the Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (13:12):
Was a thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to try topaint a larger picture of
Canada.
We're a big place and we don'twe don't value conformity as a
country, right?
We're very much the opposite ofa melting pot.
We like everybody to bring theirown stuff and then like have all
our neighborhoods be filled withlots of weird things.

(13:35):
In general.
In general.
There's some people who chafe atthat, but you know, that's our
that's the general Canadianethos.
But yeah, I oh I think thatbecause I've always I have never
loved the idea of trying to be amanly, manly man.
And that has been a struggle forme.

(13:57):
Did I stand up when you guyswere there at the show?
I'm a big guy.
Like I'm six foot two.
Oh no, you were seated.

SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
You were seated in drawing.

SPEAKER_03 (14:04):
I'm tall and broad.
If I were born in that time, Iwould probably be in one of
those industries.
Do you know what I mean?
But not but I don't think thatI'm emotionally in a place where
I would ever want to do thatkind of work.
Like I'm not a I'm not that guy.
Like I want to do I want to makemusic or, you know, make art or

(14:25):
like do things with my do thingswith my hands that are not a
hammer.
And that's not saying anythingnegative about a person who does
want to do something with ahammer.
It's just that it's not it wasnever the path for me.
And I don't think that Iinterrogated if this animated
short that I watched a lot as achild ever had any impact on

(14:47):
that.

SPEAKER_01 (14:47):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I mean, I think that's the what
you're describing about yourselfis reflected in your art, which
like you're Aaron draws birds inat FM Birds, and they're very
precise.
Like there's a and there's adelicacy to your line work.

SPEAKER_03 (14:58):
You're not like strokes, big brawny kind of
artist, you know, you're notlike sharpie drawing.

SPEAKER_01 (15:07):
So I think that is sort of reflected.
I'm interested in the fact thatthis ideal masculinity from the
log driver's balls.
Yes.
Like it's actually not the factthat he's a log driver.

SPEAKER_03 (15:19):
No, it's the part of the fact that he's light on his
feet.
That he that and that he's yeah,and that he's a good dance
partner.
Like I think that the idea ofbeing a good partner in being
what the other person wants islike so potent and so powerful.
And I mean, so it's quiteromantic in the short and in the

(15:41):
song.
I'm very thankful that we'rehaving conversations blowing my
own minds there while we'relike, this is great.

SPEAKER_00 (15:47):
Tracy will tell you, I am a chronic rereader of
books.
Do you remember Tracy sayingthat you wanted to like write
about the fact that every timeyou see me, I'm rereading the
same book.

SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yeah.
I mean, there was this one bookthat like every time, like I
would go, I went away to collegeand I'd come back, and every
time she's like, I'm like,you're still reading that book.

SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
So it's um it's called The Grubb and Stakers
Move a Mountain, and it's byAlyssa Craig, who which was the
pen name of Charlotte McLeod,who she was based, I believe she
was Canadian, but she lived inBoston.
But this was a Canadian cozymystery that I know better than
she did, probably.
I've read it so many times.
I've actually like, if everwe're in an alternate universe,

(16:27):
I'll know because the book haschanged.
Like little phrases in the bookhave changed.
I'm like, we're in an alternateuniverse.
That Canadian cozy, which is inset in a like fictional small
town.
And I've I've read the entireseries, and long story short,
it's bringing up like some ofthe things like this is like how

(16:47):
I know Canada is through thethrough my reading, through like
those sorts of things.
And it's bringing up the similarsort of a sense of romance and
sense of like quirkiness, Iguess.
The idea that, like, you know,her parents are like, Well, we
want you to to to marry someonewho's got a good job, who's like
smart, who's gonna be like ableto take care of you.
And she's like, No, I wantsomeone who can dance with me.

(17:10):
These books are about it's agardening club that is also an
archery club, because when theystarted the archery club,
everyone who wanted to join thearchery club was already in the
gardening club, so they justchanged the bylaws.
So that sense, as you'redescribing it, I was just like,
yeah, that tracks.

SPEAKER_03 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah.
And what's funny is like I as inmy own writing, I treasure the
juxtaposition of things thatdon't feel like they should go
together, and then yet somehowthey do.
And I find that the funniest,and I find that like my brain

(17:54):
says that's the highest form ofhumor.
And I'm I mean, that's probablyjust because that's what I'm
good at, and I can, you know,and I do it.
But I also did not consider thatpart of what makes the log
driver's waltz so delightful isthat juxtaposition between his
manly brawliness and his abilityto dance and the fact that that

(18:14):
makes him so desirable.
And yeah, I don't know.
Like, did this set me on mycareer path?

SPEAKER_01 (18:22):
Did it?
Like I mean, talk to me aboutthe artwork when it goes from
this the live action toanimation.

SPEAKER_03 (18:28):
Like it's a very playful, rubbery style.
It was common in in nationalfilm board shorts, and I'm sure
that's because there was a wholeapprenticeship program that
people would learn animationfrom other people who did
animation in this style.
But all of like the arm and legmotions are very broad and
sweeping, and there's no thingswill change size in an elastic

(18:52):
kind of way for playfulness, andthere's a lot of great like
physics with the bouncing of thelogs in the water and things
like that that are that are verydistinctive, like a slow fast
that happens in the um.
Yes, absolutely.
And it's very and it's all waltztime and it's all set to the
song.
And a lot of like bigperspective stuff, like out to

(19:12):
the screen and then back to tochange scenes or to just like to
give you a little, like a littlebump as the viewer.
I tried for a long time.
When I was in high school, Iwould do comic strips for the
high school newspaper.
And there was definitely a therewas definitely an influence
there in style.
Like I tried to do that the waythat they did hands and feet.

(19:35):
I definitely aped those handsand feet when I couldn't figure
out the right way to do handsand feet from people.
And what I eventually had tolearn was that I can't.
Um this was a whole conversationthat I had.
I did a comic book cover for acomic called Sweet Paprika
recently.
And I was so happy to be asked,but then I was like, I was like,

(19:56):
I don't draw people.
Like, what can I do from yourbook that's not people?
And we settled on me doing acover that predominantly
featured the dog that's a minorcharacter in the story.
And it was the dog reading theprevious issues of the comic and
giving side eye to the reader,like, what are you getting here?
You know?
But like, yeah, I there's theselittle like there's these little

(20:17):
dinner roll feat that they thatall the characters have in this,
in that, in that short.
And I, when I realized I was, Ijust couldn't draw a shoe or a
boot, so I just started drawingthe dinner rolls, and I was
like, oh, that's easy, I can dothat.
So um I'm I'm sure I've stolenlots of it over the years.
And it was, by the way, thefirst song that I learned to
play on the ukulele.
It's my go-to.
If I pick up a ukulele and tuneit, and then I'm gonna play the

(20:39):
log driver's waltz for about 10seconds to make sure it's in
tune.

SPEAKER_01 (20:42):
So I I really want to learn to play the ukulele.
It's like a bucket list for me.

SPEAKER_03 (20:46):
It's so easy.
It's only four strings.
It's only four strings.
The hardest part is strummingpatterns.
That's the hardest part, andthat's just repetition.

SPEAKER_01 (20:55):
So I'm gonna cut circle back to something that
you said when you talked aboutlike the highest form of humor,
which is exactly what you do,right?
Which is to like thejuxtaposition of things that
don't seem like they should gotogether.
I mean, that is F and birds,right?
You've got these Audubon qualitydrawings of birds with these,
like, you know, F word over andover again.

(21:16):
And it is hilarious.
It's interesting to think thatthe log driver's waltz was in
some way influential on thatsense of humor.
Like from that sense of humor.
What I'm teasing at here is thatit's more than just what's
funny.
There's also some likedesirability and merit in it,
right?
Yeah.
Like, yeah, and especially likeas you grew to be your six foot

(21:37):
two broad shouldered self,right?
To sort of see that, like that'sactually not what the log driver
was valued for.

SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
Right.
That's right.

SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
So like he was big and broad and athletic and all
those things.
But that actually wasn't thething for which he was most
valued in that sort ofjuxtaposition.
Like, I I hear the humor, I seethe humor in your work of that
juxtaposition, but it feels likeit the tentacles are much
broader than that.

SPEAKER_03 (22:05):
Yeah, deeper than that.

SPEAKER_01 (22:06):
I mean, even the the what you just described that you
did for the comic book, right?
Like the dog who was reading andbreaking the fourth wall with
the reader, like there's a lotof juxtaposition of things that
shouldn't go together there andyet somehow do.

SPEAKER_03 (22:22):
Yep.
And I didn't mention this, butthe dog is in heaven is and is
surrounded by heavenly rays andis sitting in a cloud and his
little angel wings because heis, in fact, an angel dog in the
book.
Yeah.
I would normally have said whentrying to like trace influences,
I would say that a lot of myhumor comes from the Adam West
Batman series because it's sodry and it's so deliberate at

(22:47):
not telling you why it's funny.
It goes out of its way topretend that it's not being
funny at all.
I was thrilled to read through,I got a huge cache of production
documents from the series.
And I read a lot of memos and alot of letters back and forth
from the producers and thewriters to each other.
And my favorite line was if theysee us winking, we're dead.

(23:11):
And so it's about being like nottelling jokes.
You're writing very funny thingsand you are just saying, Oh no,
those aren't jokes.
That's not jokes.
You know, we're gonna deliverthis like it's the most serious
thing in the world.
I've always had that kind oflike in the back of my brain
when I do stuff, just from likeI watched so much of that as a
kid and really loved it, andthen was thrilled to find out

(23:33):
later that it was funny.
Like when I watched it as a kid,the whole point is as a kid, you
think it's serious, and as anadult, you find it's incredibly
funny.
And and so I guess that wouldhave been a more subliminal one
because I was making funnythings before I knew that Batman
was funny.
And I did always find the LogDriver's Waltz funny, not in a

(23:58):
ha-ha way, but in a, oh, I'vejust been delighted by something
way.
You know, like here's my bigsmile, and I really like it.
And by the way, the last verseof the song is that when the
season's over, she's gonna askhim to marry her.
Oh.
Which is so nice.
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (24:12):
But you said a lot of you didn't hear that bit.

SPEAKER_03 (24:16):
A lot of people, yeah, you don't you don't get to
that part unless you get all theway to all three minutes of the
log driver's waltz, which youoften wouldn't get to.

SPEAKER_01 (24:23):
So there's something about femininity as well here.

SPEAKER_03 (24:26):
Yep.
Right?

SPEAKER_01 (24:27):
And about like she knows what she wants, and it
ain't those guys.

SPEAKER_03 (24:31):
Well, and they're fine.
I love that she's kind to them,but they're not just not the one
she wants.

SPEAKER_01 (24:38):
And once she knows what she wants, like that's very
subversive.
I'm gonna ask him to marry me,like that.
Yeah, especially from when wewere kids, that was not a thing.
And if this is a folk songthat's even older.

SPEAKER_03 (24:50):
Yeah, exactly.
So this is a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (24:54):
There's a subversion of expected gender norms in both
directions, then with the finalverse.

SPEAKER_03 (25:01):
Yeah.
That's great.
That's quite lovely.
Yeah.
I should just send you guys alink so you can just spend a
moment watching the show.

SPEAKER_01 (25:07):
Yes, please do.

SPEAKER_00 (25:08):
We'll include it in the show notes so our listeners
can watch it as well.
I asked my husband to marry mein 2007, and I had people
freaking out about it.
In 2005.

SPEAKER_03 (25:19):
And was he a log driver?

SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Is that is he uh is he uh no uh mechanical engineer,
which not at all similar.
I mean that's simple.
There's there's less likelihoodof being crushed by logs.
So I mean it's non-zero chance,but I guess it depends on what

(25:41):
you're mechanically.

SPEAKER_01 (25:44):
I surprised you by talking about masculinity.
What did you think you weregonna be talking about?

SPEAKER_03 (25:49):
I wasn't sure.
I was just gonna talk about theplace that it holds in my heart
because I don't interrogate myfeelings for I actually I don't
interrogate my feelings for alot of things.
Like I don't I find itinteresting to do sometimes, but
I often am just like, you knowwhat I'm happy to do is I'm
happy to just like this.
Because sometimes when you thinkabout it too hard, you're like

(26:13):
you can break it.
Like Oh, we know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
Yeah, we we almost subtitled this podcast Ruining
Our Own Childhood since 2023.

SPEAKER_03 (26:23):
Right.
Right.
There's a lyric to a song that Ireally like that I have never
understood.
And I ended up sitting in a barwith the songwriter for about
half an hour before a show andhaving a great conversation with
her.
And I it took every fiber of mybeing not to ask her what the

(26:46):
lyric meant meant, because Iknew I would break the magic of
it for myself if I gave it aconcrete something.
You know, you know what I mean?
And so I was like, I didn't, butI boy want to know.
And I mean, I can just liketweet at her and I'm sure she
would tell me, but I'm not goingto.
So Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
So you were just going to nostalgia us.

SPEAKER_03 (27:06):
I was just going to see.
Yeah.
I was going to see whathappened, and I was interested
to see what your questions wouldbe.
To where they would they wouldtake me.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
So Well, I mean there's a lot in what you're
you're you're telling us about.
I'm just that brought up for methe difference in because we're
approximately the same age, thedifference in our childhoods,
even though I don't think oflike a 70s, 80s, 90s childhood
in America and c Canada beingthat different.

SPEAKER_03 (27:34):
Right.
A little different.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
There are a lot of differences.
Like just the fact nocommercials in children's
television.
That's huge.
Yeah, right.
That's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_03 (27:45):
Yep.
If we wanted to see, if wewanted to know what action
figures were coming out, we hadto put on the Buffalo channel.

SPEAKER_00 (27:51):
Well, and our our television's like I love He-Man,
and they came up the actionfigures came first, and then
they came up with the car too.

SPEAKER_03 (27:59):
Right.
Oh yeah.
He-Man was advertising.
He-Man was straight upadvertising.
I mean, even G.I.
Joe was that.
You know, I that was I had avery weird nostalgia-fueled
moment because I ended upmeeting Larry Hama, who's the
guy who gave G.I.
Joe all their stories when thelittle G.I.
Joe's came out.
You know, because G.I.

(28:20):
Joe used to be a big size.
Yeah, like a Barbie.
Barbie-sized.
Yeah.
But he was one dude and he wasG.I.
Joe and he had differentcostumes.
And the Larry Hama version ofG.I.
Joe was every one of these guyshas a name, a backstory, a real
name, a code name, you know, andhow they got here.
And I've met him a bunch oftimes at Comic Cons now.
And it is really wild to liketalk to the guy who like is the

(28:42):
architect of so many afternoonsspent lying on my stomach on the
carpet, making these little meninteract with each other, you
know?
And so yeah, that was that'sit's I would love to be able to
do that, have that kind ofconnection with anybody involved

(29:03):
in the creation of the logdriver's waltz, but it's so long
ago.
I don't I don't know that weknow who wrote the song.

SPEAKER_01 (29:10):
Well, it's it sounds like I if it's with if it's
recorded on Folkway's records,my recollection of their whole
mission was that they werecollecting things.
Like so it wouldn't have beensomething that I don't remember
the singer's name, Wade.
Uh yeah, Wade Hemsworth wouldhave written, but that he had
collected, like he had learnedit from someplace else.
Exactly.
So it's probably fairly old,which makes it all the more

(29:30):
delightful, the subversion ofthe gender norms because it's
old.
And then the fact that it wasthen like drilled into a whole
generation of Canadianchildren's heads.
There's something reallyfascinating about that.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 (29:42):
It must have made us all a little bit weird.
Or a little bit weird's not theword.
A little bit l let us questionall the other things that we
were being told about thesethings.

SPEAKER_01 (29:54):
Aaron Powell Well, it gives permission, and not
just permission, it rewards sortof Resisting the cultural norms,
the gender norms, the verypractical expectations of the
girl's parents to marry this aprofessional man, at least in
terms of romance, it givespermission to counsel those
norms.
We talked about thejuxtaposition position earlier,

(30:16):
and I was thinking of sort ofthe vlog driver himself, but
even the medium of it's liveaction and then they abend in
the river and then it becomesthe animation.
There's something in thatjuxtaposition position too,
something sort of magical whenit's viewed through her eyes
that I still like when SpongeBoblike cuts to like an actual live

(30:40):
action sponge, I still findthat.

SPEAKER_03 (30:44):
Very funny every time.

SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
Juxtaposition of the animation and the and the live
action.
And SpongeBob, it's the otherdirection.
But even if it were just fromblack and white to color, like
the Wizard of Oz or something,there's magic in that.
It's all the more magical whenthe live action, like old-timey
film, I'm imma I'm imagininglike old film, like from the 30s

(31:06):
or something.

SPEAKER_03 (31:06):
You got it.

SPEAKER_01 (31:07):
And it's all grainy and it's dirty and it's and then
it like a bend in the river, andall of a sudden it's this very
flowy animation that like thatmoves in time to the music.

SPEAKER_03 (31:18):
Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 (31:18):
Just in my imagination, that is so
delightful.
And there's as you said, it'sfunny, not in a ha-ha, but in a
like a magic sort of way.

SPEAKER_03 (31:28):
Exactly.
And I think too that likelyrically, it is clever in a way
that surprises.
You know what I mean?
Like you just I you never reallyknow what's around, what's gonna
come for that rhyme.
And I like that a lot.
I like not being able tocomplete the rhyme in my head

(31:50):
before we get there because it'san unexpected little bit.
Oh.
I yeah, it is very I'm having ahard time thinking about my own
work and like the DNA of thisinside of it.
Well, I think this is verystrange for me.

SPEAKER_01 (32:03):
That's you said it made a whole it made you all
weird.
It didn't make you all weird.
What it did was it like rewardedyou for not being predictable.

SPEAKER_03 (32:13):
Right.
Right.
Which is what you do.
Predictable is the worst.

SPEAKER_01 (32:18):
That's what you do, though.
That is what effing birds is.
Like, if I didn't read Englishand I just looked at it, there's
no way I would guess what thecaptions are on your cartoon.

SPEAKER_03 (32:29):
That's right.
That has been, by the way, thathas been the biggest challenge
for when we talk abouttranslation.
Yeah, uh moving this to othermarkets.
Like it it works pretty well inFrance French, but it doesn't
work in Quebec French.
Really?
So funny.
Yeah, but France French, it'squite terrific.
But part of that is the man whodid the translation is an
absolute poet.

(32:50):
There are people who here's theproblem with being on the
internet is that uh you getpeople interacting with you that
you would never want to interactwith in real life.
And I because I do somethingrelated to birds, which is a
special interest topic for a lotof people who have like who get

(33:13):
into very like the nitty-grittyof the understanding of all
these things.
People will nitpick in trulyinsane ways.
And I had someone like the wayyou render the bird.

SPEAKER_01 (33:25):
They'll be like the beak is the wrong color or
something.

SPEAKER_03 (33:28):
Well, sometimes people are like that, and I
don't care, but because I don'tcare.
Um but um the thing that thatthey get often the most picky
about is what the caption saysand how that is in some way not
applicable to a bird.

SPEAKER_01 (33:41):
To that bird.

SPEAKER_03 (33:42):
Yeah, or to any bird.

SPEAKER_01 (33:44):
That's the Did you say like, you got it?
You got it.
That's the joke.

SPEAKER_03 (33:47):
I'm not making bird jokes.
I'm making emotion jokes.
Because bird jokes are onlyfunny for bird people.
I posted one page of the Frenchtranslation, like just to show
it.
It was the eagle that's flyingaway that says eat fards.
And in French, it was just avery beautiful way of saying it
in French.
And there were there was thisguy who just kept insisting that

(34:09):
his translation was moreaccurate and my and the
translation in my book waswrong.
And how could I do that?
And I was like, well, first ofall, I didn't translate my own
book.
Like, I'm not a translator.
My publisher in Francetranslated this book, and they
had an award-winning poet to it.
But if you would like, I willtag him into the replies and ask
him why his is better thanyours.
And and so I tagged him in inthe replies, and God bless him.

(34:32):
He said, Well, what they wantyou to have written is a very
pedestrian eat the fart that Imade.
And what I wrote, which I thinkis much more elegant, is eat the
smell of my farts.
And and I was like, there yougo.
There you go, buddy.

(34:52):
That's why you're wrong.
That's like, why would you andthen he was like, Well, I only I
only did French in universityanyway.
So I was like, fuck me.
What are you doing?
Like, you know, like why?
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (35:05):
Let me guess.
White dude?

SPEAKER_03 (35:07):
Oh, of course.
Of course.
It was uh it was gonna be awhite dude or an anime avatar or
a Roman statue avatar.
Like those are the only guys.
Those are the only guys who dothat.

SPEAKER_00 (35:18):
I just recently had someone describe someone I like
someone was wrong on theinternet.
And I weighed it in.
I shouldn't have.
A friend, I shouldn't have.
But a friend of mine uh waslike, she said she was like, I
was gonna tag team and I wasrealized you were okay because
that guy was strung up by hisnose hairs.
And I was like, that is thegreatest description of it ever.

(35:41):
Strung up by his nose hairs.

SPEAKER_03 (35:44):
By his nose hairs.
Oh, that's really good.
I like that.

SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
That's gonna end up in the comic soon.

SPEAKER_03 (35:50):
Yeah.
Well, that's I'm always lookingfor what's the new version of
like let's take a chestnut of anexpression, like hoist on their
own petard or whatever else.
And then like, what is theversion of that that fits in
effing birds?
And my favorite when I wastrying to figure out a new
variation on you know, cuttingoff your nose to spite your
face, and I wrote try not to setyour dick on fire.

(36:11):
And I that one I think I nailedit.
You know, I think you did.
I think you did.

SPEAKER_01 (36:18):
So my my challenge to you is I want you to go back
and like print out the lyrics tolog driver's waltz and figure
out at least one at Bird'scomic.

SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
That's oh my god.
That can be inspired by lyricsby the log driver's waltz.
I'm sure I can find something.

SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
I'm sure you can too.

SPEAKER_03 (36:41):
Man.
I'm trying to like now I'm I'mtrying to go through the song in
my head because I part ofknowing it so well is that I'm
almost not singing words.
Playing it and singing it, I'mjust making the sounds that I
know come next.
Totally.

SPEAKER_01 (36:56):
That's why I said print out the lyrics.
Don't do a memory.

SPEAKER_03 (36:58):
I gotta, I gotta like, I gotta go look at them
all.
Yeah.
Oh, she'll say, I'm not surethat it's business of yours, but
I do like to dance with a logdriver.
That's my that's that's thethat's right near the top of the
song.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (37:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
This has been a lot of fun.
Tell me, Erin.
I like, okay, so you just youwere just gonna bring this and
like just nostalgia over it.

SPEAKER_02 (37:24):
Yep.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (37:25):
So we got through what you needed to do.

SPEAKER_02 (37:27):
Yeah.
All right.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
I'm realizing that my my task of remembering all
the takeaways is actually prettyheavy lift today.
Right.
Sorry.
So I'm gonna start a littleearlier than I ordinarily would
to make sure there's time foryou two to like remind me of the
stuff I'm forgetting.

SPEAKER_03 (37:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (37:47):
Because there's a we talked about a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (37:50):
This was surprisingly deep for a
three-minute national film boardanimated.

SPEAKER_01 (37:56):
It's in the name of the show, Erin.
Did you not know what show youwere calling on?

SPEAKER_03 (38:00):
Listen, I intellectually knew what I was
in for, but I didn't reallydidn't game it out in my head
what was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 (38:10):
All right.
So we're talking about The LogDriver's Waltz, which is, we
think, a folk song from Canadathat was turned into a
delightful animated short thatalso has some live-action film
to the song that was recorded byRemind Me, the Somebody Sisters.

SPEAKER_03 (38:25):
Uh Kate and Anna McGarigal.

SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
The McGarigal sisters are singing in the
version that you were watchingas a young one.
And this is fascinating as anAmerican, as having grown up in
the United States, about thesame time.
The idea that the Canadians didnot show commercials during
children's programming, like,wow.

SPEAKER_03 (38:48):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (38:49):
And how did you know what to buy?

SPEAKER_03 (38:52):
Well, that's that's the thing.
But we also like, but and thatprogramming wasn't like if you
wanted to watch G.I.
Joe, there wasn't a Canadianchannel showing it.
If you wanted to watch He-Man,there was not like you would
have to find the Buffalo channelor get the rabbit ears out and
find an NBC affiliate fromacross the water, you know?

unknown (39:13):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (39:14):
Wow.
Okay.
So this delightful piece, thisdelightful short.
Yeah, seriously.
Like it's a totally differentkind of a childhood.
Like the I have nostalgia forthose commercials.

SPEAKER_00 (39:24):
But anyway, I can sing, I can sing the songs of
those uh totally.
They're they're in there.
They are furniture of the minds.

SPEAKER_03 (39:32):
Aaron Ross Powell And to be clear though, like I
totally did see all thosecommercials because we would
also watch American television.
Right.
Right.
But we would just do the hopback and forth.
You know, be like, oh, we'regonna watch this.
And now but now this one's up tothe code.
It's just that like Yeah, theconcept of the Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 (39:45):
Yeah, well, it's just the fact that the the
Canadian television was likethinking about the well-being of
the children and Americantelevision.

SPEAKER_03 (39:54):
Let me like Right.
So let me tell you, let me tellyou what was up against G.I.
Joe when I was a kid.
Buffalo 29 was showing G.I.
Joe, and at the same time, TVOntario was showing a show
called Magic Shadows, in whichEl Wee Yost, who is their
in-house film critic andprogrammer and interviewer, and
is a man with a voraciousappetite for all kinds of film,

(40:16):
who loves film and cancontextualize film for you, he
would chop up a film into30-minute chunks and show it
over the course of a week.
And he would do an intro to tellyou what you had missed to catch
you up on it, and then he wouldshow you, and then he would do a
little teaser at the end to tellyou what was coming tomorrow.
And so he would show up againstG.I.

(40:37):
Joe would be Treasure Island,chopped into five parts with El
We Oast.
And then the exciting part, too,is that El We's son Graham is
quite a famous screenwriter andtelevision producer now.
He did Speed was a film that hewrote.
That was his big breakthroughmovie.
But most recently has beenworking on a lot of great

(40:58):
television, including Silo andSlow Horses and some really
great stuff like that.
Yeah.
Love that guy.
So yeah, so that's a lot of mylot of that childhood comes from
El Will Yoast and TV Ontario.

SPEAKER_01 (41:11):
So Canadians actually like program television
for children, like for thechildren's well-being, which is
really mind-blowing.
Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 (41:20):
It wasn't it wasn't to make money.

SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
Yeah.
What?

SPEAKER_00 (41:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (41:24):
You can do that?
I mean, we're I don't know ifyou guys know this, but we're
socialists.

SPEAKER_00 (41:30):
So can you say that out loud?
So so there.

SPEAKER_03 (41:35):
Sure.
I mean, I my voting record, Itend to vote for the new
Democrats.
So, you know, that's that'stheir socialist party.
Shall we?

SPEAKER_01 (41:41):
You socialists up in Canada were showing this little
short when there was time thatAmericans would have filled with
advertising.
Yes.
And so this short, which oftenyou didn't see the whole thing,
we had this story told from thewoman's point of view of this
young woman whose parents wanther to marry a very practical
lawyer or doctor, but those mencan't dance.

(42:03):
They're just so boring.
And so in she's waiting for thelog drivers to come into town
because she wants to dance withthem because they are light on
their feet.
And if we make it through thefull three minutes, not only is
there that subversion of sort ofthe practical, like she wants
the magic of dance and artisticexpression in dance, if you
will, if I can push it that far.

(42:25):
She also subverts gender normsby saying she's going to ask him
to marry her.

SPEAKER_03 (42:29):
And I just realized something that I'm really big on
is there's a whole anticipationaspect to the song because the
second verse is when the drive'snearly over, I like to go down
and watch all the lads as theywork on the river.
I know that come evening they'llall be in town and I'll get to
dance with my lock driver.
Just going to watch them at workbecause knowing that hours later

(42:51):
they're going to be there todance.

SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
Well, she can also sort of evaluate which one is
like that's right.

SPEAKER_03 (42:56):
That's right.

SPEAKER_01 (42:59):
So I sort of surprised you when, based on
your description of this shortand the song and the content,
like I immediately asked youabout romance and masculinity.
And so we started talking aboutmasculinity in general, but also
in particular for you, Aaron.
Like, because you're a big guywho, if you had been in Canada

(43:21):
in the 30s, like probably wouldhave been pushed into log
driving or some similar likebrawn-based profession based on
your physical shape.
And that was never really it foryou, you know, which plays out
in what you do now with thisvery funny cartoon with very
precise drawing.
And this short, this song thatwas drilled like just over and

(43:47):
over, over, layered into yourhead to build the furniture of
your mind, gave you permissionto still be a manly man, even
though you weren't doing themanly things.

SPEAKER_03 (43:56):
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Oh, that's yeah.
That's it.
I'm not being a man in the wrongway.

SPEAKER_01 (44:03):
Right.
Well put.
This song and animated shortgave a whole generation of
Canadian men permission to issuetoxic masculinity.
Like that you don't have to behyper-masculine in order to be a
man in the right way, in a waythat is desirable, that the
women will appreciate and wantto be with you and even maybe

(44:26):
ask you to marry her.

SPEAKER_03 (44:28):
Right.
And you can even you can wearthe plaid shirt, and it's okay.
You don't have to be the guy whochops the wood to wear the plaid
shirt.
You can go dances and wear theplaid shirt.

SPEAKER_01 (44:36):
Yeah.
So we talked about how, likethere was some tension, I think,
in our conversation aboutwhether this led to weirdness,
which I think was said withaffection.

SPEAKER_03 (44:48):
Yes.
Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (44:49):
But I think we push back a little bit on that idea
that it's not exactly weirdnessso much as it's permission to
not be predictable.
And in fact, like reward to beunpredictable, which happens in
so many ways through this short,not just through the song, the
lyrics that you can't predictwhat the next rhyme is going to
be, but also through theanimation that moves in like

(45:12):
flowy, unpredictable ways.
The actual content of the storyof what happens, the fact that
this woman wants to dance ratherthan like have a safe life, in
so many ways, this little pieceof media told you again and
again and again that predictableis not so great.

unknown (45:34):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (45:34):
It's better to be unpredictable.
It's not necessary and it can bedelightful to be unpredictable.

SPEAKER_01 (45:40):
So this led us to also conversations about humor
and what is funny.
And the highest form of humor iswhen we stick two things
together that seem like theyshouldn't go, but actually do,
which is epitomized in F andBirds.
Listener, seriously, go check itout.

(46:05):
Where it's not just sort of thejuxtaposition, but also there is
some merit in like not evenacknowledging that you're being
funny while you're being funny.

SPEAKER_00 (46:14):
That's I'm gonna have to go back because I I
loved that Batman as a child andI never revisited it once I was
old enough to see that it wasfunny.

SPEAKER_03 (46:23):
Oh, let me tell you, you gotta watch for all the
words on the screen becausethere's a a running gag where
there are labels on everythingin the Batcave, and they are
overly explanatory and they arenot helpful.
There's there's a shot in thefirst episode where he shouts,
quickly, Robin, to the giantlighted Lucite map of Gotham

(46:44):
City.
Run across, and there's a giantlighted Lucy map of Gotham City,
but it has a label at the top ofit that says giant lighted Lucy
map of Gotham City.
And that gag put me on the flooras an adult.
And then it happened like fourmore times during the episode.
And that exact gag of themwalking over to the television

(47:07):
in the Bat Cave and it having abig label that says television
across the top of it is likeit's at least five times in
every episode.
It's so good.
I tried to collect them all.
I had I did a Twitter accountcalled Bat Labels, and I was
trying to tweet every label inthe Batman series.
There's a Tumblr for it, too,and it was oh, that was a good
time.

SPEAKER_01 (47:28):
So, all right.
So we spend some time thinkingabout Canadian culture as well.
And Emily brought in the Gruband Sakers Move a Mountain,
which she read seriously, folks,like so comfort read times.
There was never a time in the90s when Emily was not reading
this book.

SPEAKER_02 (47:47):
That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (47:48):
Comfort read.
So I think there's aninteresting piece of the sort of
weirdness or the juxtapositionor the permission to be
unpredictable or rewarding ofbeing unpredictable and sort of
mashing things up that maybedon't seem like they go
together, like gardening andarchery.
That it sounds like we're sayingis somehow quintessentially
Canadian, not universal becausey'all do not conform, but

(48:11):
somehow like kind of gets to theethos of Canadian culture, which
I I found that very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 (48:17):
Do you know Stephen Leacock, the humorist Stephen
Leacock?
I think.
He's a very famous Canadianwriter, and his big book was
Sunshine Sketches of a SmallTown, and it is a series of
humorous short stories aboutsmall town living in Ontario.
And it is always because acolorful character does
something unexpected or weird.

(48:39):
And I love those books and Ilove Stephen Leacock's writing.
And actually the thing that Iaspire to most, and I know that
I can't win it because I don'twrite the kind of work that they
award, but there is a thingcalled the Stephen Leacock Medal
for Humor.
And one of my friends wrote anovel that was shortlisted for
it.
And I have never been morekilled about that.

(49:00):
I was just like and then Ireally needed her to win it
because I was in the specialthanks.
Because I helped a little tinybit.
I helped a little tiny bit withinformation that I knew, and I
got a thank you and the specialthanks in the book.
And I was like, I need my nameto be in Associated with Yeah,
with the Stephen Leacock Medalfor Humor.

SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
So we also spent some time talking about idiots
on the internet.
Yes.
And we could probably do a wholeepisode about translation and
sort of the ways in which, like,because I said if I looked at an
F and Birds comic and I didn'tread English, I would never
predict what it actually means.

SPEAKER_02 (49:36):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (49:37):
And so that led to the eat the smell of my farts in
French, which is delightful.
Um, there's smells of elkberries.
I think there's somethingthere's something really
interesting about that too.
If we were to delve even deeperinto humor and sort of culture,
you know, the fact that wetalked about the fact that log
drivers, even though surelythere were some south of the

(50:00):
US-Canadian border, like it'snot a piece of the broadest
culture in America.
The ways in which the cultureskind of build and then
translation and all thosethings.
So that could have been a wholenother episode.
Yes.
We don't have to be able to dothat.

SPEAKER_03 (50:13):
Oh, and I think that I think that when you see the
short, you're gonna look at thatshort and you're gonna see the
design of the character of thelog driver, and you're gonna be
like, oh yeah, that's theCanadian stereotype.
You know?

SPEAKER_01 (50:22):
Like, interesting.
Interesting.
What am I forgetting?
We talked about so much.
I know I'm I'm missing sometakeaways here.

SPEAKER_03 (50:29):
I know.
And I'm a D-rader.
Oh, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 (50:31):
Okay, it's beautiful.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (50:32):
We talked about the ukulele.

SPEAKER_01 (50:34):
You did a little bit, yes.
Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 (50:36):
We talked about drawing feet as dinner rolls.

SPEAKER_01 (50:38):
Well, we did we talked about the ways in which
this maybe influenced you as anartist, which I think is really
interesting.
Like you talked about literalways that you aped the look of
it at when you were a youngartist, but I think there also
were some things that maybe youhadn't examined about the ways
that this has influenced whatappeals to you and like sort of

(50:59):
what you want to be portrayingand rendering in the whole piece
of the comic, which I findreally interesting.
It's not a coincidence that weinvited you to come on this show
to talk about somethingimportant from your childhood,
and this is the thing that youbrought us.

SPEAKER_03 (51:13):
I think you're right.
I think that this is a I mean,it's a thing that I bring up at
any opportunity because uh everytime that I meet people who
don't know what it is andthey're like always because
they're not Canadian.
I just need to expose them tothis vital piece of Canadiana
because like I think it says alot about us as a country.

SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Well, it's it seems to me that it's not just like a
side chair in the furniture ofyour brain, Aaron.
It's like it's like the wholename couch.

SPEAKER_03 (51:38):
Yeah, it's it's right up here.
Yes.
It's yes.

SPEAKER_01 (51:40):
Yeah, which is pretty great.
Well, this was a lot of fun.
So, listeners, we will link toit in the show notes, but please
go check out Aaron's work atfnbirds.com.
So that's E F-F-I-N birds.com.
And from there you can get toall the social media places.
And as Aaron put it when we werefirst logging on before we hit
record, you don't have to likesee news about awful stuff, like

(52:01):
news in order to re-resignate.
That's right.

SPEAKER_03 (52:04):
I yeah, I I put all the comics up on the website.
I put a new comic up every dayaround two o'clock in the
afternoon.
And they're also scheduled.
I had the horrible realizationthat because of the way that my
publishing schedule works forcalendars, I submitted all of my
2027 comics back at the start ofJune.
And now we're in editorial for2027.

(52:25):
But if I were to die today, thecomic would post online for at
least 18 months.
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
Wow.
You gotta get better aboutscheduling our posts and right.
All right.
Well, this has been absolutelydelightful.
I'm so glad that we met you atFanExpo.
And thank you for accepting ourinvitation.

SPEAKER_03 (52:46):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
It was like and what and whichfan expo did we meet at?
Because I did so many in a rowin Chicago.
That was part of Did I tell youthat I was in the middle of like
seven shows in nine weeks?
Yeah, I still had like threemore to go after that.
And I oh my brain was so fried.
But did you guys get to the livepainting event?
Did you see any of the whathappened there?

SPEAKER_01 (53:07):
Uh not yours, no, uh-uh.

SPEAKER_03 (53:08):
Oh I had a parrot join me and I painted a parrot
while the parrot was on mycanvas.
Oh cool.
Yeah, that was a good time.

SPEAKER_00 (53:15):
That's fun.

SPEAKER_03 (53:16):
That's I like to do a stunt, and that was a good
stunt.

SPEAKER_00 (53:19):
That's a good stunt.
That's a good one.
It's funny that you brought upspeed because I was supposed to
do Twister next time, but Iwanted to switch it to speed.
So you're gonna bring me deepthoughts about speed for our
next one.

unknown (53:29):
Cool.

SPEAKER_03 (53:30):
I love speed.
Speed is so good.

SPEAKER_01 (53:32):
You'll have to listen to our next episode.

SPEAKER_03 (53:33):
I've seen speed a lot of times, I hate to say.
It's all right, it was full ofcans.
It was full of cans.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (53:40):
All right.
Well, I look forward to hearingthat.
And Aaron, you'll have tolisten.

SPEAKER_03 (53:45):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (53:47):
This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make
it free to produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon.
There's a link in the shownotes.
Or leave a positive review soothers can find us.
And of course, share the showwith your people.

(54:10):
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin McLeod from
Incompitech.com.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to Resonate Recordingsfor editing today's episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what's inyour head?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Log Driver's Waltz with Aaron Reynolds: Deep Thoughts About Canadian Masculinity, Quirky Comedy, and Keeping Animation Weird